Chinese leader Xi Jinping has issued an important instruction to the National Natural Science Foundation Commission, calling for a strategic, forward‑looking and systematic strengthening of basic research funding as Beijing seeks more original scientific output. The directive celebrates the foundation’s 40‑year history as a central vehicle for funding basic science while demanding reforms to the grant system, improved funding effectiveness and a healthier research ecology.
Xi asked the commission to embed the work of the foundation in the guiding framework of the “four orientations” and to seize opportunities presented by a new wave of technological and industrial change. He emphasised deeper reform of the scientific funding apparatus, broader international cooperation, and concrete support for researchers to “climb scientific peaks” and produce original results that will underpin “high‑level scientific self‑reliance” and the building of a science and technology power.
The National Natural Science Foundation was established in February 1986 and over four decades has become a principal channel through which Chinese researchers secure support for basic research. That history gives the commission institutional weight, but Xi’s instruction signals renewed central direction: a shift from routine administration to more strategically targeted stewardship of resources and incentives aimed at long‑term innovation outcomes.
For practitioners and institutions, the message is clear: Beijing wants funding aligned with national strategic priorities and with the international frontier of science, while also improving how grants are allocated and evaluated. In practice this could mean larger, longer‑duration grants in priority fields, tighter coordination across ministries and research centres, and attempts to change incentive structures that have in recent years rewarded quantity of publications over originality.
Internationally, the push has a dual effect. On the one hand, stronger Chinese investment in basic research could accelerate discoveries and expand opportunities for collaboration in global science. On the other, the strategic framing—explicitly tied to technological self‑reliance—underscores Beijing’s intent to reduce dependence on foreign technologies, a stance that will be watched closely by partners and competitors amid ongoing tensions over export controls and research security.
The commission faces significant challenges in delivering on Xi’s brief. Reforming peer review and grant administration to reward genuine originality is technically difficult and politically sensitive; balancing openness with strategic security will complicate international partnerships; and shifting entrenched academic incentives requires sustained, patient policy work. Nevertheless, the directive marks a high‑level prioritisation of basic research at a time when governments worldwide are reassessing the link between long‑term science funding and national economic and security ambitions.